The Transcultural and Hybrid Character of Chawu

The wild boar has found its own unique space in the genre animal horror. The subgenre is minor and consists of only a few films. The Australian Razorback (1984) is the most influential, and it has reached iconic status as one of the most acclaimed films in the genre of animal horror. The subgenre of wild boar horror films may be limited, but it is consistent in it themes and motifs. It always describes conflicts between nature and culture, animal and human, and the criticism of civilization is a prominent theme. Often the exploration of the place, both the nature and the culture, which produced the monstrous boar, takes up a lot of space in wild boar horror. The landscapes where the wild boar causes destruction are liminal spaces between past and present, and the genre describes monstrous places and sites of conflict where something has gone horribly wrong. The South Korean film Chawu (2009) is no exception to the rule.Footnote 1

Chawu opens dramatically by immediately establishing the main conflict in the film between human and animal and the theme of criticism of civilization. Strong scenes with animals being barbarically tortured are accompanied by newsreaders stating that “animals are distressed.” In the following scenes in the film, the theme is further reinforced through a presentation of the life conditions in the capital city Seoul and that in the sparsely populated countryside, which are both described as being in a state of moral degeneration.

Seoul is portrayed as a chaotic and dark place. Violence, drug abuse, and corruption are rife. The law is just a veneer that is not observed by those in power. It is a society in decay that is described with the words “rotten life in Seoul.”

In the countryside, the deteriorated quality of life is confirmed through a presentation of the village’s incompetent police force and the men in power who abuse their positions. Unbridled capitalism rules and the nearby mountains have had the trees ruthlessly removed to make way for golf courses and weekend farming lots to attract rich city people. Soon, however, the villagers will have something else to think about than economic gain. A monstrous beast is moving in the shadows of the exploited mountain regions, and it is hungry. Humanity has upset the ecological balance, and punishment comes in the form of a gigantic wild boar with a taste for human flesh.

From the opening scenes of Chawu, it is already clear that the film has a dystopian tone. Chawu describes a society that went wrong long before the ravenous monster makes its entrance and the fictional setting reflects a social realm where pseudoscientific beliefs about the law of nature are predominant. Life is dictated by maxims like “eat or be eaten” or “kill or be killed.” The theme of victims and perpetrators is prominent in the film. For the majority of the characters, life seems to be a constant battle where they either hit or get hit, symbolically and literally. In Chawu, people are immersed in the constant reproduction of meaningless repression that only creates suffering, helplessness, and the desire for revenge. It seems to be impossible to break the vicious circle. In this context the title Chawu is apt because it pinpoints the film’s main theme and primary symbolism. In the Chungcheong dialect, “chawu” is the word for “trap.” The title is multifaceted and saturated with symbolic significance. The word chawu can refer to the tangible traps that are constructed in order to catch the wild boar in the film. But it can also be interpreted in a more metaphorical manner. Chawu is a tale about traps, both literally and figuratively speaking, and above all it is an exhaustive social commentary to the sentiment of being trapped in the discourse of existence. This is a menace that concerns both animals and human beings. The wild boar is trapped long before he is captured. Humans have destroyed his home, and he has no choice but to leave the mountains and search for food in the nearby villages. The human characters are also stuck in traps, mainly consisting of traditional ideological norms and values, created by their ancestors but sustained and reproduced by themselves. They are tormented by the burden of the past and the notion that their destiny is predetermined in a way that makes it hard for them to evolve and make progress when this requires a considerable change. It seems like they are caught “in between” because they can neither move backward nor forward. This has grave consequences for the characters, not least for their construction of self-identity.

The Korean concept of haan can be used to describe this phenomenon. Haan is a unique Korean concept that is believed to be a result of Korea’s dramatic history (Jung 2011, 7). The country can be called a monstrous place in the sense that its history has been one of recurring repression and violent conflicts. Korea has been invaded by nations such as China, Mongolia, and Japan, subjected to long periods of colonial oppression, and literally torn into two by a bloody civil war.

Haan has been compared to the American concept of blues. It is described as a collective feeling of shared suffering and destiny, which is important for the creation of a South Korean identity.Footnote 2 In my interpretation, haan simultaneously expresses frustration and sorrow over the very difficulty of defining and constructing a specific South Korean identity, since the country’s culture is shaped by the influence of several different cultures. In that sense, haan expresses ideas that both confirm and question the idea of a distinctive national character.

In South Korea, the term mugukjeok, “lacking in or having no nationality,” is frequently used to describe the nation’s identity (Ibid., 17). According to Sun Jung (2011), the concept is essential in studies of South Korean popular culture, since it perfectly captures its transcultural and hybrid character. South Korean popular culture can be described as odorless, but it “is not only influenced by odourless global elements, but also by traditional (national) elements” (Ibid., 3).

In popular culture mugukjeok is an internationally successful concept, not least in film. A hybridization of Korean film tradition and American blockbusters appeals to both a domestic and a Western audience, while simultaneously offering something different, something alien. Chawu is an excellent example of mugukjeok. It is a hybrid shaped by influences from Asian and Western genre film.

The Western influence is particularly clear in Chawu’s many intertextual references to the genre of animal horror, especially the wild boar film Razorback (1984) and the shark film Jaws (1975). These films permeate the plot of Chawu, its characters, motifs, and themes. Several well-known scenes in the films are imitated and parodied, together with a few occasional scenes from the creature feature Predator (1987).

Chawu is also influenced by a number of Asian horror film traditions. A clear influence comes from kaiju eiga, a Japanese genre in which gigantic monsters cause destruction. Kaiju eiga is, by tradition, highly critical of society, often portraying problems of an ecological, social, and political kind.Footnote 3 Another Japanese tradition is kaidan eiga, the ghost story film. Korea’s indigenous version is called kuei dam, and it often involves a vindictive female ghost, wonhon. In Chawu, a “madwoman” in the village takes on the appearance and characteristics of a wonhon. With her black, uncombed hair and white face, she frightens the men of the village, disturbs the patriarchal order, and problematizes ideas about maternity and social exclusion (Lee 1988, 23–25).

Korean horror is often described as a fusion of several different genres such as comedy, speculative fiction, and melodrama (Peirse and Martin 1988, 6). Melodrama is particularly significant for the narrative tradition that dominates contemporary South Korean film. In the South Korean horror genre, the melodramatic elements often mean that the horror is neglected in favor of a study of the fictional evil and of the characters who confront it (Byrne 2014, 188). In a self-reflexive spirit, a film can investigate a society that gives rise to evil, and this often leads to a greater understanding and empathy for the monster.

In Chawu, the wild boar, like the Korean people, is a victim of the country’s dark history. It is a genetic hybrid, created by the Japanese army in order to finance its warfare. Indigenous wild boars have been crossed with foreign ones, resulting in gigantic, aggressive monster boars that devastate the indigenous nature. The mutant boar was created for war, death, and suffering, and it is suggested that this resulted in the creation of a man-eating species called Horochoros Minor Chageni. The boar is a product of the colonial past and a creation made by both man and nature. In this way, the monster is also permeated with haan.

Although the film’s monster is a victim, a being for which one can feel empathy, it plays an important part as the antagonist of the film. In the humans’ fight against the hybrid boar, the film explores ideas about South Korean identity, in general, and about gender, in particular. A particularly burning question is: How do different forms of hybridization, in the past and in the present, affect South Korean identity creation and the construction, reconstruction and deconstruction of masculinities?

The Hybridization of South Korean Traditional Hegemonic Masculinity in Chawu

According to Sun Jung, the transcultural and hybrid character of popular culture has contributed to a hybridization of South Korean traditional hegemonic masculinity (2011, 3–4). In Chawu, the portrayal of the male characters shows an ambivalence toward both traditional and hybridized forms of masculinity. Hegemonic features are simultaneously praised and criticized. In the encounter with the film’s monsters, however, there is an evaluation of the characters’ respective masculine identities.

Four men set out to hunt the wild boar: the hunters Chun Ill-man and Baek Man-bae, the detective Shin, and the police officer Kim. The men share the goal of killing the monster, but they are driven by different motives. They also represent different forms of masculinity.

In the film the hunter Chun and the detective Shin represent stereotyped South Korean forms of traditional masculinity. Chun is an older man whose masculinity was shaped in a patriarchal tradition. He grew up in the village, and over the course of his life as a skilled hunter, he has acquired an obvious authority. In the Confucian tradition, Chun’s masculinity is primarily characterized by the concept of wu, physical and martial strength, but it also has elements of wen, mental strength, and civilized control. In this way, he can be said to be an ideal man.Footnote 4

Detective Shin is called in to lead the investigation of the maimed bodies left by the ravages of the wild boar. He is a polite and intellectual man who radiates an inner calm. Shin shows a clear contempt for weapons and violence. Shin represents what Sung calls seonbi masculinity, where mental skills, wen, are more valued than wu. Seonbi masculinity has high status in South Korea and is considered to represent virtues such as courtesy, fidelity, loyalty, integrity, and “cultural-scholarly attainment” (Jung 2011, 26–29).

Baek Man-bae is a professional hunter who is hired to kill the wild boar. He had been an apprentice to Chun but left the village to pursue an international career. Baek has the whole world as his hunting ground and is known from television and newspapers. In his professional life, he has achieved economic success and high status, competences that typify the construction of hegemonic patriarchal masculinity, in both the East and the West.

Police Officer Kim is young and portrayed as being lost in his role as a man. He has adopted a traditional patriarchal role as breadwinner and takes his work as a police officer in Seoul very seriously, but it gives him no satisfaction. Kim’s authority as the head of the family is non-existent, and his home is in permanent chaos. Kim feels powerless both at work and at home.Footnote 5 He has no control over his life and is portrayed as a spineless victim of fate.

In Chawu, the more traditionally patriarchal men are initially portrayed in a positive light. Chun is the first to realize that it is a wild animal that is threatening the village. He takes the threat seriously and does everything he can to protect the villagers, while simultaneously showing respect to animals and nature.

Shin, the detective, is also portrayed as a man with a sense of responsibility. With his seonbi authority, he gets the police force to do their work more efficiently. Shin does not accept any abuse of power, and when he adopts a strict attitude toward disciplining the village police captain Yoo (who is the film’s representative of excessive military violence and blind faith in authority), it reinforces his image as a man of principle, loyal to his seonbi ideal.Footnote 6

The hybrid masculinity of Baek, the hunter, is at first portrayed in a more critical light. Baek may be a good hunter, but he has lost his respect for life, with a ruthless side that is revealed when he lets the villagers serve as bait in a trap for the wild boar. Baek’s monstrous sides seem to be a product of his hybridization. He has been schooled by Chun, but has rejected his teacher’s holistic and humble attitude to life in favor of a narcissistic Americanized lifestyle. This choice has serious consequences. Baek surrounds himself with exclusive status symbols. His hunting equipment is expensive and high-tech. He lacks an “authentic” moral compass, however, and a genuine social context in which to ground his self-esteem and his masculinity. Baek is disillusioned, a man who has lost his way and his goals in a postmodern world where there seem to be infinite possibilities.

In the final conflict with the wild boar, however, the expected masculine order is turned upside down. Baek assumes the role of a classical Hollywood hero and sacrifices his life to save the others. Chun and Shin end up with their halos askew. Both are shown to have defects in their character.

Chun drinks too much, and he sleeps off the intoxication at the time when his grandchild falls victim to the wild boar. As protector of the family, he has not done his duty and he thinks he has failed as a man. Chun is afflicted by hen, a mixture of profound hate, self-contempt, and failure, which can only be relieved by taking vengeance on the perpetrator.Footnote 7 Chun fails to realize his revenge, however, and he is unable to restore his male honor.

Shin’s seonbi masculinity turns out to only be a veneer. Shin is in fact a kleptomaniac and lacks self-control.Footnote 8 His knowledge of Confucianism is shallow, and instead he creates his own Confucius-like proverbs when he feels they are called for. In the final battle with the wild boar, Shin is the one who most clearly betrays his ideal of masculinity when he exploits his rank to save his own skin.

When the battle is over, it is clear that neither Chun, Shin, nor Baek are ideal men. They have all failed in one sense or another. In the hunt of the wild boar, the monster has ended up in the background and the battle between the men in the foreground. Instead of listening to each other and cooperating, Chun and Baek choose to be rivals and mark their territories. Shin is too cowardly to contribute anything constructive. The men’s hunt is thus unsuccessful. They fail to kill the monster and to confirm their position as ideal men.

That the men are trapped in a vicious circle of destructive behavior, which only generates gender stereotypes and identities of a pathological nature, becomes particularly clear in the very last minutes of the film. It turns out that Baek has survived the attack of the wild boar but has suffered an even worse fate. He has been captured by the village’s madwoman and vicarious wonhon. Like the wonhon of the horror genre, the madwoman challenges the patriarchal order, and instead of tenderly looking after Baek, she puts a diaper on him, hangs him up on meat hooks from the ceiling and threatens to torture him if he does not call her “mother.” The scene is full of symbolism. From a gender perspective, it can be interpreted as an ironic but horrific exposé of society’s perverted gender roles. It can also be interpreted as an image of South Korea’s colonial past, when the people were forced to obey a series of self-appointed fathers and mothers of the country. Or perhaps it is South Korea herself that is today’s despotic mother? A country that, despite its independence, is unable to create a new, healthier society, but which just continues reproducing evil and suffering.

Chawu ends in the same spirit as it began, with the theme of victim and perpetrator, and the final scene is permeated with the concept of haan. The film’s critique of civilization, however, is not entirely pessimistic; there is hope. This is not presented in the form of a man but of a woman. After Chun, Shin and Baek have fled the field, it is left to the police officer Kim to kill the monster. He is not alone, however. At his side is a young woman, Soo-ryun, who has been reluctantly allowed to come along on the hunt by the male hunters if she can “cook and provide entertainment.”

The film audience is introduced to Soo-ryun early in the film, in a scene where she is reading a book written by her hero and ideal role model, Jane Goodall. Suddenly she hears screaming from a man. She runs toward him and in horror he points at another book lying in the grass. The book has a bloody severed hand clinging to it. They have found the remains of one of the wild boar’s first victims. In contrast to the man, Soo-ryun is not easily startled. On the contrary, the finding excites her, because it means that wild boars are near and she can start collecting the data she needs for her research. This behavior is typical for Soo-ryun. She is a young woman with both feet sturdily grounded in the soil but at the same time well-oriented in advanced technological science.

Soo-ryun and her male colleague are camping near the mountain. In a modest tent filled with the latest technical equipment, they conduct research on how ecological changes affect the region’s stock of wild boar. Soo-ryun is intelligent and resolute. She knows the indigenous nature and culture well, but she also has an open mind for global influences. Like Chun, she has a holistic world view, in which culture and nature, humans and animals are not regarded as separate entities, but as a connected whole. Soo-ryun is not interested in the male hunters’ pathetic cock fighting. She is only concentrated on the mission to find the wild boar. When the male characters quarrel, she makes real progress in their common goal to track their prey.

Soo-ryun does not want to kill the boar. Her intention is to learn more about it and unlike the male hunters she has no weapon; instead, she uses her camera. When she is filming she makes the comments in English, a language that she masters, unlike the men in her company. This emphasizes her ambition to make an international career, roam the world, and “make real difference,” just as Jane Goodall did.

The hunting expedition turns out to be a hard challenge for Soo-ryun. She tries to keep a straight face and maintain a neutral attitude to the hunters’ ambitions. But when they find the wild boar’s den and discover a litter of piglets, she can’t control her feelings. The hunters decide to kill all the piglets to put an end to the wild boars’ existence. Soo-ryun protests are fierce but she only manages to save one piglet because she persuades the hunters to use it as bait for their traps. When the hunters kill the litter she cries but after that she puts the surviving piglet in her backpack and takes good care of it. This action proves to be essential to how the film ends.

After Chun, Shin and Baek had left the hunt in disgrace. Soo-ryun and the police officer Kim manage to lure the wild boar into an abandoned factory. Despite her respect for all life, it is Soo-ryun who finally captures the wild boar with the aid of a drop-trap in the form of an elevator. She thus combines knowledge of the ancient hunting tradition with modern technology to create something new which brings the desired result.

Kim also shows great courage in the last battle with the wild boar. He is aroused from his passiveness and risks his own life to save his family and the villagers from the monster. Like the other men, however, he does not fully measure up. When Soo-ryun captures the wild boar it does not die at once but is in tormented by its wounds. Kim then takes advantage of the situation and gets Soo-ryun to promise to say that it was he who killed the monster if he is to put the animal out of its pain. Soo-ryun snorts in contempt but as is customary for her character she instantly puts the issue behind her and concentrates at more important tasks at hand, in this case the little piglet in her backpack. The piglet was used as bait in the elevator but saved by Soo-ryun after the trap crushed its father.

Soo-ryun keeps her promise, and in the closing scenes of the film, it is fairly clear that Kim is also caught in the trap of patriarchal reproduction, for he has no moral qualms about letting himself be hailed as the man who killed the beast. When the male characters enjoy their fifteen minutes of fame and compete for media attention Soo-ryun keeps her distance, as usual. Her own mission is completed and she knows something that she is bound to keep for herself. In one of the film’s last scenes, though, the secret is revealed for the audience. At a beautiful flourishing mountain field, a cute sprightly piglet is seen munching on green grass. When the camera moves closer the piglet glares into the lens and smirks in a malicious way. True to her ideological convictions, where animals and humans, nature and culture, function as a connected whole, Soo-ryun has set the wild boar’s offspring free. Free to thrive and decide its own destiny.

Summing Up

Chawu is a South Korean product. It is transcultural and hybridized. Its theme is pervaded by haan, and it explores issues connected to South Korea’s national identity and the construction of gender, in the past and the present. The phenomenon of hybridization is examined throughout the film.

In Chawu, it is clear that hybrids can be monstrous. The film’s monster, the wild boar, is a hybrid. South Korea as a nation is also a hybrid, shaped under the influence of other countries’ culture. Since the country’s past is characterized by conflicts and violence, the nation and its history are also presented as monstrous. The past is a ghost that haunts the South Korean people and creates haan.

It is obvious that South Korea, in some sense, must free itself from its past. As the film’s title and primary theme suggest, the South Korean people are trapped in the discourse of existence. This affects both the country’s nature and culture in a negative way. In particular, it has a devastating influence on individuals’ attempts to construct a satisfying self-identity. This article primarily illuminates two aspects of identity construction: the longing for and aspirations to mold a proud collective national identity and the struggle against oppressive traditional gender roles. This concerns both women and men. The characters Chun, Shin, Baek, and Kim are all caught in gender role traps. They are trying to form their masculinities by obeying the rules and ideals constructed by a hegemonic patriarchal tradition. Despite their efforts they are not happy and it is clear that they feel uncomfortable in the stereotypical gender roles they are trying to maintain. In the end of the movie, there is no hope for the men. They are still trapped. When it comes to Soo-ryung, it is a different story. She seems to be the only character, besides the surviving piglet, that has a promising future. Soo-ryung has found a way to avoid being caught in the trap consisting of traditional ideological norms and values. She does not discard wisdom from the past; instead, she makes use of it by combining traditional and contemporary knowledge. By setting the piglet free, she rejects the maxim “kill or be killed” and shows that she has no interest in claiming revenge on the offspring of the wild boar. It is clear that she refuses to take part in the reproduction of meaningless violence and repression that only creates suffering, helplessness, and the desire for revenge.

In spite of Chawu’s harsh social critique of the conditions in South Korea, it is clear for the audience that nothing in the film’s portrayal is either completely black or white. The nation’s monstrous past also has precious knowledge that ought to be preserved. Even the film’s monster symbolizes good values. The hybrid wild boar may have run amok, but he is also described as a protector of nature and animals. The wild boar defends the ancient mountain regions from human exploitation, so that the mountains can remain unchanged.

In Chawu, the important thing does not seem to be the origin of knowledge, but rather people’s ability to employ it selectively, thereby breaking destructive patterns and preventing new ones from being established. Chawu possibly advocates a kind of principle of goodness, where the means and the ends minimize suffering and aim for the “good” for all living things. As history tell us, though, that is a principle that may well turn out to be a slippery slope. In Chawu, however, the will to at least try is portrayed as the only hope for South Korea and, by extension, for all of humanity.